Going From Solo To Ensemble: Orchestrating An Ecosystem For The Future Of Business

We are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, in which physical and digital technologies are combining through analytics, artificial intelligence, cognitive technologies, and the internet of things (IoT) to create digital enterprises capable of quicker and more informed decision-making.

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As Industry 4.0 inherently changes the way that businesses function—expanding innovation, maximizing productivity and operating in increasingly interconnected ways—organizations are being forced to accelerate their pace of adaptation to avoid losing ground in the market.

The need for rapid transformation has resulted in a “collective” philosophy being applied to business strategies. Companies realize that the digital era is too complex to go it alone.

They need ecosystems.

When assembled and nurtured effectively, these networks can address issues that lie beyond the capabilities of any one entity—and in ways that are faster, cheaper and more user-friendly than alternative approaches.

Business ecosystems—marked by the interdependency of ideas, processes and technologies—offer unprecedented access to capabilities, resources and talent on a global scale. By bringing together various players and groups with distinct strengths, a successful ecosystem is able to capture new value, set the stage for innovation, develop and scale solutions, improve customer loyalty, and create sustainable revenue streams.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

Every ecosystem requires “orchestration” by someone who has a clear understanding of the fluid, dynamic nature of collaborative networks. From the outset, the orchestrator needs to know the ecosystem’s key stakeholders and identify their customer segments, partners, the drivers of progress and solution-shaping, and their value propositions. And they need solid, validated information on the market, key competitors, their customers and existing ecosystems.

The next step is to find the right mix of ecosystem players—parties that not only possess the necessary skills for the particular tasks at hand, but that also have common interests and a shared purpose. Successful collaborations allow all entities within an ecosystem to meet their goals. Working together should provide tactical benefits in the short term, but ideally, companies will grow together over the longer term and ultimately integrate services.

As a professional services provider, Deloitte often fills the role of orchestrator. In a recent engagement, we used Deloitte’s DigitalMIX platform, to identify a suite of technologies designed to help the client revamp their customer-engagement strategy. The final combination of artificial intelligence, customer insights, and cloud enterprise resource planning tools resulted in higher end-user satisfaction, greater efficiency, and accelerated growth.

Ecosystems that function like this offer organizations access to valuable knowledge and skills that typically are impractical to maintain in-house. Whether they choose to work with third-party orchestrators or tackle that responsibility themselves, shared ecosystems—when constructed and managed correctly—help businesses discover new, smarter and faster solutions that simply wouldn’t happen otherwise.

Jason Girzadas is the Global Managing Principal of Deloitte’s Consulting business and a member of the Deloitte Global Executive. He has over two decades of experience in client management and practice leadership roles, including roles on the US Consulting Executive Committee...